The cosmic dust aggregation experiment CODAG

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Abstract
For the simulation of the first stage of preplanetary dust aggregation, we developed the cosmic dust aggregation experiment (CODAG). With CODAG, we intend to study the aggregational behaviour of a cloud of micron-sized dust particles due to Brownian motion of the grains. For a realistic simulation of the processes in the young solar system, the dust grains have to be dispersed in a rarefied gas so that mutual collisions are ballistic. Fast sedimentation of the grains in the Earth's gravitational field leads to unrealistic collision velocities and to a rapid loss of particles to the container walls. Therefore, CODAG was designed to work in a microgravity environment. In this paper, we present an overview of the experimental design of CODAG which was recently flown in a Get Away Special container during the STS-95 mission.